Two middle-aged friends - Ms K and Ms R -fell victims to motorbike snatch thieves two weeks ago. The first hit happened in Bukit Maluri (Kepong). Ms K was walking home from the shops with a shoulder bag when shewas dragged for what seemed to be “forever”, she said. She was hospitalised with lacerations to her face and torso.

The second hithappened in Butterworth. Ms R was in the front passenger seat of the family car. A helmeted motorbike pillion rider with dark visor came by her side at the traffic lights, smashed the window and grabbed Ms R’s Longchamp tote from her lap.

The scourge of street crime makes me very angry. Are our police so utterly incapable of investigating and catching the criminals? A fair question, but the answer’s more complicated, according to PDRM's response to public perception ofour policing and criminal justice system, which is one of seven National Key Results Areas targeted in the Government Transformation Programme in 2010.

Four years on, motorbike bag snatchers are still riding loose on the streets. Travel warnings by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and US Statement Department even alert its people about violent motorbike “snatch and grab” in Malaysia. But Australia, too, has its street crimes, so you say, from racist abuses and alcohol-fuelled king-hits to bikie gang vendettas and ram-raids.

And in the US, the right-to-bear-arms creed has spawned drive-by shootings and gun rampages on university grounds.

Indeed, criminal activities are as mindless and random in Sydney and Chicago as they are in PJ and KL. But even then, I feel I can rely more on the police to keep my family safe on the streets of Chicago and New York, Sydney and Melbourne than I can trust our police to ensure my daughter is safe walking with a tote bag on the streets of PJ and KL.

These days, rarely do I see police patrolling the hot spots or a pair walking their beat, getting to know the people and breaking up anti-social behaviour. I remember those days when mata-mata in brown khaki uniforms on bicycles, motorbikes and jeeps were omnipresent. There were polis pondoks on street corners with real policemen - Malay, Indian, Chinese and Sikh. They were respected, their uniform a sign of authority.

So, when I hear of elderlies dragged for metres by heinous snatchers - all for a measly RM50 stashed in a fake Louis Vuitton - and succumbing after months in a coma, I get mad. Going hudud wouldn’t be a bad idea after all - no limbs, no snatch thieves. Seriously, punishments for snatch thefts and robberies, including gang robbery, vary as defined under the Penal Code.  

‘Apalah kita boleh buat?’

When traumatised victims are unable to describe the vicious perpetrators, police reports are listed under ‘No Further Action’. Then, victims and their families hear the apathetic investigating officer say these dreaded words -‘ Apalah kita boleh buat? ’

Blame the police and government?  Naturally, but that won’t help. Let’s cast away this thought: ‘Police can’t do anything, what can I do? You dare fight the criminals, ah?’  

Short of resorting to vigilante justice, there’s much the rakyat can do. Every responsible citizen is theoretically a crime-fighter. We may not have the faith, mettle and grit to organise and deploy like The Guardian Angels of New York or the City Angels of Milan.

But as concerned citizens, for as long as the criminals continue to terrorise women and the elderly on our streets, we must not rest nor should we cringe in fear. We should work with the police, in spite of their incompetency.

I came across the Malaysian Crime Awareness Campaign Facebook, which at this time of writing has 76,600 likes, and increasing since it started in 2012. An informative site indeed, which ironically could generate more fear with the graphic images of the crime scenes than inspire community confidence that residents can and should take back their streets from petty criminals.

We need to go beyond raising awareness on social media, albeit its usefulness, to step up and neutralise the snatchers.

I remember doingweekly night patrolsin groups of three in SS2 (Petaling Jaya) RukunTetangga (RT) in the late 70s. RT still exists today under Akta Rukun Tetangga 751. But do we still see RT volunteers ‘beronda-ronda’ through the neighbourhood with torchlights and police issued whistles and batons?

Instead, we see gated communities popping up throughout PJ and KL - a cityscape of polarised populace, the have-lots keeping out the have-nots. We’ve insulated ourselves into enclaves with feigned security. Residents pay private security contractors who employ foreign uniformed guards to mainly man the boom gates. Most are seemingly untrained nor physically fit to intervene in any suspicious criminal activities.

More than building an urban fortress

Ridding the streets of criminals is more than reforming the policing system and building an urban fortress. The people, the community - we need to change too, from cowering behindgated upper class ghettoes to a community of people who meet and greet. When communities organise themselves and work with the police to fight crime, crime rate falls as evident in neighbourhood watch groups such as Crimestoppers in the UK and community policing in Boston.

The structure for voluntary patrolling scheme is already in place. Volunteer patrolling schemesand Rukun Tetangga units are growing in the small towns, but less so in the big cities. 

Unless capital city residents are willing to reach out to their neighbours and watch out for each other - like small town folks naturally do - we’ll witness greater social fragmentation, wider class divisions and more pseudo BelAir type gated ghettoes designedto keep out the petty criminals who feel that they have no choice but to snatch and grab from the elderlies walking home from the shops.

ERIC LOO left Malaysia for Australia in 1986 to work as a journalist. He currently lectures at University of Wollongong, Australia, and serves on the advisory committee of UPI Next , a journalism education and training platform run by United Press International. He edits a refereed journal Asia Pacific Media Educator and conducts journalism training workshops in Asia. Email: eloo@uow.edu.au